Friday, August 30, 2013

Project Life with Craft Warehouse Design Team Member Melissa Whittaker

Hey there! My name is Melissa Whittaker, and I'm very excited to share one of my Project Life layouts here on the Craft Warehouse blog. I have been documenting my family's memories using Becky Higgins Project Life for over two years now, and I am still so in love with this method. I can record what's happening in our everyday lives quickly and easily.

This week, I am using the Project Life Wedding Edition mini kit. One of the great things about the Wedding Edition mini kit is that a majority of the cards are not specifically wedding related. There are plenty of black, white, and gray patterned filler and journaling cards that can be used for any purpose. Here is how I used this kit to complete my layout.

When I start working on a layout, I like to place both of my page protectors on my work surface, and lay my photos on top. Once I get my photos in place, I will pick out the Project Life kit I want to work with, and then narrow down which journaling cards I want to use.

When I was looking through the Wedding Edition mini kit, I found that 3x4 "You + Me" card and knew it would be perfect to go with a photo of my husband and son walking together on the beach. You can see how a card that would appear to be wedding related could be used for an everyday photograph.

Other cards I chose from the kit were one with a key at the top, an ampersand, and patterned filler cards.

Another great thing about the Wedding Edition mini kit is that there are cards with label boxes that can be cut out to make labels for your photos. I cut this label from one of the cards.

Once I have my photos and journaling cards chosen, I will usually pull out embellishments that coordinate with the colors in my layout. I say usually because I don't always add things to my layout. The beauty of Project Life is that it can be as simple or embellished as you want it to be, so I tend to embellish when I have a little extra time to be creative.

For this spread I am working with a few products you can find at Craft Warehouse: American Crafts Rockabye glitter thickers, embellishments from Melissa Frances, and Fancy Pants Chalk Tape and Chalk Label Stickers.

After I have all of my products and photos ready to go, it is time to pull it all together. Here is what my finished layout looks like using the Project Life Wedding Edition mini kit:

I love the black, white and gray mixed with my colorful photographs.

Here is a closer look at the left side:

Starting at the top, the ampersand card was perfect to link two photos of my son Austin that I received from his daycare teacher. On the upper right card, I punched out some chevrons and added some of the American Crafts Rockabye thickers as a little title for those photos. I used more of the thickers over a chevron patterned filler card to label the photo from when I had sushi with my best friend Shannon.

The way I used the key card might sound a little cheesy, but I thought it was a good way to talk about finally finding a bathing suit that fit after several failed attempts. I wrote that I "unlocked the secret" to finding a great suit. On the bottom left I have a title card with some journaling about the week as a whole, and I used some of that Fancy Pants Chalk Tape and a white gel pen to put the dates onto my layout.

On the bottom right photo I used the label that I cut out:

Here is a closer look at the right side of my layout:

For this page I used a design F page protector. Generally, I stick with Design A (like the left side of my layout), but sometimes I do like to change things up with a different design. And with plenty of new configurations about to be released, I have a feeling I may be trying different designs more often.

This page was all about our trip to the beach in Ogunquit, ME. I had a few photos that I wanted to keep 4x6 but use in the 3x4 slots that this design has. The easy solution was to cut my photo in half (it's not as scary as it sounds as long as you have the ability to reprint a photo). I like the 4x6 photo spread over two pockets, and I've done this in the past in a few of my other layouts.

I used a Fancy Pants Chalk Sticker that I trimmed on the top right photo of Austin running from Brad. More of those American Crafts Rockabye thickers were placed on the photo of Austin jumping off of a rock into the water, and on the bottom I stapled the parking ticket right on to my photo.

Of course, my favorite part of this page was that "You+Me" card:

I cut little arrows out of the chalk tape to point to the photo of Brad and Austin, and just added my journaling at the top. How sweet is this card?

Thanks so much for letting me share my Project Life layout with all of you today!

2 comments:

Melissa I love your pages! I LOVE the You and Me card, I'm planning to use it on the title page of my wedding album but it could totally be used on an everyday type page like you did! I agree that the black/white/gray looks stunning with your color photos. Nice work! (: